"Listen, or your tongue will keep
you deaf." --Native
American proverb "The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person
is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever
give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often
has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned
words." --Rachel
Naomi Remen "An enemy is one whose
story we have not heard." --Gene
Knudson-Hoffman
"We just keep talking until there's nothing
left but the obvious truth." --Oren
Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the
Onondaga Iroquois, said of his tribal council tradition
"How do I listen to others?
As if everyone were my Master speaking to me
His cherished last words." --
Hafiz (1320-1389, Persia), Sufi mystic and poet
"If we could read the secret history of our
enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering
enough to disarm all hostility." --
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Five questions to focus conscious evolutionaries
Deepak Chopra
5/15/10
What kind of world do I want to live in, and
what kind of world do I want for my children and their
children?
What is my role or contribution in bringing
about this world?
If I am part of an organization and I am the
leader of the organization, what kind of team do I want to have
and what is my relationship with this team?
Where do I belong in this larger network of
conversation that we are having right now?
What do I feel is the need of the moment, and
what do I see as the solution of the moment?
Excerpts from At last, a movement that
would have us listen to and learn from each other
"On Friday night, we broke into three groups (of eight participants
and one facilitator each) to discuss such questions as, What did
you understand about being an American when you were 12 years
old? How have you experienced political differences and how did
that affect you personally?
It was impossible to participate in that exercise without coming
to see (and feel and know) that every participant, whatever their
politics, was a complex and caring human being."
"But the end result of that conversation is we all realized
-- I mean, we all really “got” -- how misleading and
even infantilizing the old political spectrum had become."
"Before leaving, we all signed our names to a document titled
“We the People.” Many of us signed with flourishes,
as if we were signing something akin to the Declaration of Independence.
Here are the key passages:
“We respect our
differences and recognize America needs every one of our viewpoints,
ideas, and passions -- even those we don’t agree with --
to keep our democracy vital and alive;
“We recognize
that meeting here and across our land for dialogues across differences
builds trust, understanding, respect, and empowerment -- the conditions
necessary for freedom and democracy to live in us and around us;
“And, therefore,
each still grounded in our own considered views (conscience and
convictions), we commit ourselves and our communities of interest
to foster dialogue across the many divides in America, in large
and small groups, to build trust, insight, and inspired action
toward the more perfect union we all desire” "
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